post archive

Resistance

Yesterday I went with my friend Dahlia to the Met Museum to see the David Hockney retrospective, which I admired, and the Joseph Cornell show, entitled “Birds of a Feather,” which I adored. I’ve been reading about Cornell lately because the main character of the novel I’m writing is a collage and shadow box artist whose primary inspirations are the works of Cornell and Hannah Hoch.

While we were wandering around the museum after viewing the aforementioned shows, Dahlia and I talked about our Armenian language studies. We are both working with the same tutor—a teacher who relocated from Aleppo to Yerevan who gives lessons over Skype—and we love her and we love the language, to which each of us has a different and complicated relationship grounded in family history. As we moved into the room with Thomas Hart Benton’s mural “America Today,” we talked about the endless and unfathomable cruelty of the people who are running our country.

How is it possible to keep one’s equilibrium in the face of these daily and unremitting attacks on our institutions, the most vulnerable groups and individuals among us, and our very values? We can’t let them deaden our responses—we have to remain vigilant and dynamic, finding hope in community and action. I recently went to an accompaniment training with the New Sanctuary Coalition and was impressed by their leadership’s strategic thinking and vibrancy, even as their executive director was fighting imprisonment and deportation. At an Adalah NY meeting this week, I was inspired by the other members in the group, many of whom are involved not only in Palestine solidarity work, but are also engaged with a variety of groups organizing around prison abolition, anti-militarism, anti-colonialism, and other struggles.

When Dahlia and I left the museum, there was a small group of women standing on the sidewalk outside handing out fliers about the paucity of women artists in the Met. How had I not noticed until that moment that among all the solo shows currently on view—Hockney, Cornell, Eggleston, Wegman, Golub, Kiefer—there is not one woman artist? (Not only are they all men, but also they are all white men.) On all fronts, we have work to do.

Maxine Kumin’s poem “Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief”—the title as much as the poem itself—keeps echoing in my mind lately. I find solace in poetry—and in Armenian lessons, yoga classes, bird walks, my family and my friends. May we all find energy for resistance and comfort for our souls.

In the past few weeks I have read close to 90% of the articles about Harvey Weinstein—a man I have known and loathed for twenty-five years—starting with the New York Times piece about his decades of sexual harassment settlements, and Ronan Farrow’s bombshell article in the New Yorker with accounts of rape. Once those two hit, the proverbial floodgates opened with more and more women coming forward with accounts of harassment and assault. After having heard dozens of stories about Harvey’s cruelty and physical violence from traumatized former employees, both men and women, I always knew that he was a monster, but I did not know the extent of the sexual harassment that went on, nor did I know that he was a rapist.

The “Harvey Effect” has subsequently taken down prominent men such as Amazon Studios Head Roy Price, Nickelodeon showrunner Chris Savino, screenwriter James Toback (who has now been accused of sexual harassment by over 200 women), celebrity chef John Besh, fashion photographer Terry Richardson, the publisher of Artforum Magazine Knight Landesman, political journalist Mark Halperin, and writer and editor Leon Wieseltier. We can only hope that these dudes will continue to fall like dominoes.

As an antidote to that cavalcade of jerks, I wanted to share this profile of Greg Asbed, a 2017 MacArthur Fellow who has spent most of his professional life fighting horrific labor abuses. Asbed was asked, “What was your path to this work?” and his answer was inspiring. “I’m a first-generation Armenian-American,” he said. “My grandmother moved to Syria from Turkey, but not of her own volition. There was the Armenian genocide; she lost her whole family except for one sister. She managed to survive the genocide by being bought and sold twice by the age of 13 — once to the Kurds, then by the Kurds to an Armenian family, which was my grandfather’s family. I have always felt a certain responsibility, as a bearer of DNA that was forged in the crucible of genocide, to the idea of universal human rights.”

The situation in Puerto Rico is dire (described by the governor as ‘apocalyptic’), and if you are like me, you are probably trying to figure out how to help as our cruel and unhinged dotard is doing next to nothing.

The natural catastrophe has at least temporarily focused our attention on the people of Puerto Rico, who have been suffering under colonial exploitation and neglect for decades, compounded by the recent debt crisis and subsequent “austerity” measures. The already precarious economic situation of Puerto Rico, where it has been estimated that as of 2014 as many as 86% of children live in ‘high poverty areas,’ has been worsened by the devastation wrought by the hurricane.

I asked my friend Yifat at MADRE for a suggestion about where to send support for Puerto Rico’s emergency relief, and she replied that the best place to donate to ensure funds go directly to the most vulnerable communities, including communities historically overlooked (low-income, Afro-Puerto Rican, etc.) is The Maria Fund. You may also donate directly to Taller Salud, one of the groups administering The Maria Fund

If you have a few more minutes to devote to the situation in Puerto Rico, please read this article about the U.S. law—the Jones Act—that makes food twice as expensive in Puerto Rico as in Florida. Just yesterday the Department of Homeland Security refused to waive the shipping restrictions specified in the Jones Act. This refusal means that providing emergency relief to Puerto Rico will require more time and cost more money. This is unconscionable. Please take a few more minutes and call your Congressional representatives to say, “Suspend the Jones Act in Puerto Rico. (N.B. Phone calls are the most effective method of making your opinion know to your elected representatives. You can find information on how to contact them here.)

I’ve been meaning to send write a new blog post for weeks. On my daily to-do list for the past tens days, I have dutifully printed, “write blog,” and then ended up copying it onto the next day’s list. So here it is the end of summer—Labor Day is upon us—and I’m finally sitting down to do it.

On the personal front, the summer has been a restorative one. We spent long weekends in the country where I worked in the garden and devoted at least an hour a day to watching the birds. On our front porch alone there were three active nests—a family each of robins, house wrens, and house finches with much flying to and fro by the parents and much cheeping by the nestlings. James and I also went to Chicago in July for the Socialism 2017 Conference where we heard some inspiring talks, enjoyed meals with like-minded friends, and felt comfort in assuming that we were the most conservative people in any room. We also took a family holiday to Provincetown in mid-August. I went on an Audubon-led shorebird walk, we spent afternoons on the beach, and we took in two drag shows featuring the supremely talented Jinkx Monsoon.

The work on my novel has been slow, but steady, as I continue writing while interviewing Armenians who lived the war years in Beirut in person and via Skype. The stories have been fascinating, and each anecdote feels like a piece in an enormous jigsaw puzzle I’m assembling. I’m planning another trip to Beirut for late October—will be on the ground for two weeks, staying within walking distance of the neighborhoods I’m writing about.

On the public front, each day has brought a new outrage or a new disaster, both in this country and abroad. I won’t catalogue all the misery that I’m sure you have been following as well, but I will say that I’ve been trying to find a way to process the unfathomable—both difficult to understand and seemingly bottomless—cruelty of the people currently running our national government.

While not a mental health professional, after much observation of Donald Trump’s Tweets, his public appearances, and most recently after reading the full transcript of his speech in Phoenix, I have come to the conclusion that Trump is suffering from cognitive impairment complicated by his long-term narcissistic personality disorder. (James suggested the he might also be a sociopath.) A friend shared an interview from October 2016 with singer Aimee Mann in which she talks about the song she wrote about Trump entitled, “Can’t You Tell?” (The refrain to the song is, “I don’t want this job. I can’t do this job. My God, can’t you tell, I’m unwell, I’m unwell.”) Mann said, “At this point, it’s like being angry at a rabid dog. You just have to solve the problem and get the dog in a cage.” Arguably, easier said than done. The anger is better directed at the enablers in the Republican Party who complain about Trump’s behavior and yet take no meaningful action against him because they’re still hoping to use him as a blunt instrument to push through their cruel and hateful agenda. I have some ire reserved for the Democrats who seem to have learned nothing from their defeat in November (check out this piece for a sizzling takedown of American liberals).

On the literary beat, I enjoyed this profile of novelist Claire Messud, My favorite part was this paragraph:

Messud frowned when asked if she ever tried to make her work more commercial. ‘‘I reckon you don’t write to please other people,’’ she said, slowly and deliberately. ‘‘That’s what your integrity is.’’ Her voice was husky; we had been talking all morning, as the dogs pattered in and out. ‘‘There are bell bottoms and miniskirts, and there are pencil skirts and stiletto heels,’’ she said. Fashions come and go in literature, too. ‘‘You can write something that’s a perfect work of art, but if it’s a pencil skirt that falls in a miniskirt moment, God help you. You just have to make your pencil skirt and be you.’’

There are so many other interesting articles I could share, but who has time to read them all? I will offer you this last engaging piece from Waging Non-Violence about clowning as a tactic of creative resistance.

The bird nests by the pond and on our porch are mostly empty now, our older daughter has moved to Bushwick (in Brooklyn), and our younger daughter has headed off for her senior year in college. The flap and noise of summer will now give way to the quieter but equally colorful days of autumn. I’m hoping to get a lot of writing done!

It was reported this week that top Trump Administration officials are attending a weekly Bible Study class in the White House led by an Evangelical minister named Ralph Dollinger, founder of Washington, D.C. based Capitol Ministries. According to an interview Dollinger gave to the Christian Broadcasting Network, regular attendees at the Bible Study include Health Secretary Tom Price, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Agriculture Secretary Sunny Purdue, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Vice President Mike Pence, who serves as a sponsor of the meetings, occasionally drops by, and President Trump has a standing invitation, and each week “receives a copy of Drollinger’s teaching.” You can see a full list of the ‘sponsors’ of the weekly Bible study groups (as well as words about Drollinger’s innovative ideas about the separation of church and state)—yes, there is more than one. Drollinger shares his teachings with members of House of Representatives and the Senate at separate meetings. (The Cabinet is served light refreshments, the Senate is offered a hot breakfast, and the Reps have dinner.)

What might Drollinger be teaching the highest officials in our land? A quick perusal of the Capitol Ministries site turns up some interesting topics. For example, Drollinger’s “teaching” on same-sex marriage includes gems like this: “Homosexuality and Same-Sex Ceremonies are illegitimate in God’s eyes. His word is repetitive, perspicuous and staid on the subject. For the single or society to engage in or endorse it is to practice sin.” Drollinger was roundly criticized in 2004 for stating that it was a sin for women with children at home to serve in the California State Legislature. Around the same time he also called Catholicism “one of the primary false religions in the world.” His ideas about immigration are Draconian and his thoughts on public assistance are Dickensian. Drollinger doesn’t believe in Global Warming, he believes there is a Biblical basis for America’s commitment to Israel, and he further believes that God is the ultimate capitalist.

One wonders what White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, an avowed Catholic, makes of Dollinger’s Evangelical prayer meetings. But a least Bannon and Dollinger can bond over their shared desire for authoritarianism in America.

My friends from the Paris-based musical band Collectif Medz Bazar asked me to help disseminate this open letter. It tells a sad story about intolerance, but the text of the letter itself is a beautiful expression of the band’s commitment to amplifying the humane in the human through music.

An open letter to those who made sure the musical band Collectif Medz Bazar would not be able to sing its repertoire during the “Nuit arménienne” (Armenian night) of Arnouville on April 22nd 2017, because of their hostility towards the songs in the Turkish language.

Until recently, we, the Collectif Medz Bazar, were happy to count among the participants in the “Nuit arménienne” (Armenian night), an event organized by the municipality of

Arnouville, France, in partnership with several Armenian associations, this coming April 22nd. The event organizers informed us that a few individuals and Armenian associations of

Arnouville were adamantly against our playing the songs of our repertory that are in Turkish and that they were doing everything in their power to stop us from singing them. Since we did not receive any message directly from them, we cannot speculate about their reasons.

Because of this, and to avoid any misunderstanding, we sent them a letter last month via the event organizers, very clearly identifying our approach and explaining that nothing in our project goes against the spirit and feeling of the event.

Having read our letter as well, the event organizers were inclined to pursue our participation, because not only did they feel that our repertory didn’t pose any problems, they expressed their adherence to the values that we defend. But the response of the individuals and associations in question was total rejection, once again without bothering to address us directly. What’s more, they intensified their campaign against our repertory, forcing the municipality to disinvite us, the latter being afraid that on this date (April 22nd), which is close to both the annual commemoration of the Armenian genocide and the 1st round of the presidential elections in France, some sort of disturbance might occur during the event.

We are aghast and totally speechless at the relentlessness with which these individuals and associations worked to sabotage a concert that had been scheduled a long time in advance, attacking a symbol, in this case a language, as if it were an enemy. We consequently invite these persons and associations via this open letter, reformulating our initial letter, to assume their actions publicly or, if they do not dare to do so, to have the decency to reconsider their actions and to renounce such practices in the future.

The Collectif Medz Bazar, a musical ensemble based in Paris, is composed of musicians of various origins: Armenian, Turk, Franco-American. The group got together not with the intention of symbolizing reconciliation between Armenians and Turks, but simply to share with one another their artistic creativity and friendship. But the Armenian-Turk factor does play a part in that a reciprocal curiosity did exist, a need to know, to be able to laugh, cry, speak openly, sing and play music together – this desire surely drew us towards one another. During a performance, our only propos is the music we present to the public, which is drawn from our respective cultures in the intimacy and spontaneity of each person; our mother tongues are thus the very basis of our repertory and their presence is indisputable.

It would appear that for some Armenians, singing in the Turkish language is an issue.

The few anonymous Arnouville individuals are not the first to protest, and it’s easy to imagine a sizeable group of Turks who think exactly the same thing about singing in Armenian. Their respective reasons or justifications being, without any doubt, completely different. But in both cases, the result is the same: they both censure a language, incite xenophobia. But observe this obvious fact: one can say anything one wants in any language. A book denying the Armenian genocide can be written in Armenian just as a book presenting a thorough investigation of this subject can be written in Turkish. A language, a culture cannot be held responsible, even symbolically, for the crimes perpetrated by those who claim said language or culture as their own. A language is not “owned”: some Armenians speak Turkish, some Assyrians speak Kurdish; this letter is written in French and translated into English. The Collectif Medz Bazar does not represent any national culture, we draw from all living cultures. The culture of Turkey, like that of many many other nations, is multiple and as varied as the people who live there. When we sing in Armenian, in Turkish, in French, we are not glorifying the Armenian, Turkish or French cultures. Reducing a language or a piece of music to a national symbol is not the work of an artist. But offering a part of yourself by singing in your mother tongue, a simple, generous act, is. Why, then, attack persons whose only intention is to share their music and the joy of being able to sing together?

Our project forms part of a global change, fragile but real, in relations between

Armenians and Turks. Initiatives such as ours are not isolated cases, there is today a community of persons sharing the same aspiration: to communicate, get to know each other better, try to live together, make progress on an individual basis given the lack of any political impetus. This aspiration and mutual coming closer of two traditionally hostile peoples, although it cannot replace the necessity of a political resolution to the Armenian Question, does serve to raise awareness at an individual level and will undoubtedly contribute to collective healing, however slow it may be. At present, Armenians can openly commemorate with the Turks, with the Kurds: a slow awakening of awareness has been in progress for several years now. To turn one’s back on this progress means returning to the status quo and would be equivalent to turning one’s back on those who, sometimes putting their lives at risk, assume a position that goes against the current dominating ideology. In the name of what combat?

Music is a universal language that can transmit far more that words can. The next time your prejudices make you rise up against our music (or against anyone else), take a minute to listen to the rhythms and melodies, the thoughts and emotions that we express. You will understand the sincerity of our work.

With this open letter, we join our voices to all those who defend the fundamental values of freedom of expression and brother/sisterhood among peoples.

When I was talking with my college-aged daughter recently, she told me that her friends’ older siblings were “on the struggle bus.” I had never heard that expression before, but I knew immediately what she meant, and thought it was an excellent way to describe the ongoing economic, emotional, and health travails of many young adults that I know. I also thought my daughter had coined the term, until I looked it up and found that it has been around since at least 2007.

This reminded me of a time in the mid-1980’s when I was working as Susan Sontag’s assistant. When she was complaining about her partner of the time, dancer and choreographer Lucinda Childs, I said, “She sounds like a control freak.” Susan’s face lit up, and she said, “Exactly. That’s exactly what she is.” When I came back the next week, Susan said, “You didn’t make that term up, did you?” No, in fact, I had not made up the term “control freak,” nor had I claimed to be its progenitor. I was sad to disappoint her with my lack of originality.

But, let’s get back to the struggle bus. I’ve been riding my own struggle bus for the past year, dealing with three generations of family health problems, my own scary trip to the emergency room on Christmas Day, a dental gum graft, and, of course, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who have control of our country’s nuclear arsenal. The latest bump on the road is the fact that one of our Havanese dogs, eleven-year-old Busby, has a tumor on his neck. It’s most likely benign, but we won’t know for sure until after the upcoming surgery to remove it. Poor Busby is on his own struggle bus, going to the veterinary hospital to be prodded, poked, and probed. While we are in the waiting room, he looks up at me with his tragic face, which I have learned from veterinary web sites is an indication of his being in pain. I want to cry, but instead I take a photo of his sad mug and send it to everyone else in the family. Although most of the time it seems to be a one-seater, no one likes to be on the struggle bus alone.

I look around, however, and see that lots of people are struggling. Many of our friends have frail and infirm parents. Many others are dealing with young adult children trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives, some of them coping with mental health issues. All around us, the most vulnerable people and institutions—undocumented immigrants, working people who are paid less than a living wage, LGBTQ individuals whose newly won rights are being eroded, overpoliced low-income communities, people of color in a white supremacist society, Planned Parenthood, public schools, unions, polar bears, songbirds, and the planet—are being threatened by a cruelty as ambitious as it is unconscionable.

When I went to the hair salon the other day, I asked the woman who checks the coats if she had a nice Easter. This is a woman I have known for maybe twenty years—the same stylist has been cutting my hair for thirty years, he has been the proprietor of his own salon for more than twenty years, and his employees love him and stay for long tenures. She looked at me and said, “These are some challenging times, but still I wake up every day and say, I’m going to make this day the very best it can be.”

Oh yes, we’re riding the struggle bus, but we can try to make each day the best day it can be. And we can try to be kind to each other. As for the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the horrors of gangster capitalism, I leave you with Mother Jones’s exhortation: “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

“Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil, struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness.”

~ Vasily Grossman

“10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.”

~ Susan Sontag

Last week the sheer cruelty and venality of #45 and his Horsemen of the Apocalypse were revealed to be deeper and wider than I had possibly imagined. Representative Paul Ryan, who is doing his best to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, boasted that his dream since college was to do away with “entitlements,” for example low-income people having their health needs covered by Medicaid. Trump’s 2018 budget proposal included a $54 billion increase in military spending that would be underwritten by stripping funds from other agencies. The arts, science, and the poor would bear the brunt of the cuts. On the chopping block are programs for the most vulnerable, such as Meals on Wheels, which provides meals to homebound seniors; subsidies to poor families for home heating; and legal aid for low-income people. White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney claimed that cutting funding for Meals on Wheels was compassionate because the program “was just not showing any results.” An article in The Independent asserted that Trump could reverse his proposed cuts to the arts, the poor and the elderly if he stopped staying at Mar-A-Lago. His visits to his private Florida resort will cost taxpayers an estimated $600 million in security services over four years. But Team Trump has no intention of cutting back on any expenses associated with their luxuries and comfort. The pain of Bannon’s “deconstruction of the administrative state” is to be felt primarily by those they deem the unworthy masses.

In Jane Mayer’s long and devastating piece in The New Yorker about Robert (Bob) Mercer, the hedge fund billionaire behind the Trump presidency, the cruelty of the Team Trump’s ideology was further elucidated. Mayer cites a former colleague of Mercer’s:

“Bob believes that human beings have no inherent value other than how much money they make. A cat has value, he’s said, because it provides pleasure to humans. But if someone is on welfare they have negative value. If he earns a thousand times more than a schoolteacher, then he’s a thousand times more valuable.”

The neo-liberalism of the mainstream Democratic Party is also harsh, but the current gloves off attack by the Republicans on the poor, the undocumented, the elderly, the arts, public education, the public commons, and our environment is truly ruthless. Our country is being run by Susan Sontag’s cruel 10 percent.

Thankfully, the resistance to this viciousness is growing. Many people who voted for Trump are pushing back on the attempt to strip millions of people of their health insurance coverage. Some moderate Republicans, feeling the heat from their constituents, are wavering on the proposed repeal of Obamacare. Already established organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Make the Road New York, to name just two, are fighting back on other fronts. There are a number of new national outfits, such as Action Network Group, The Women’s March, and Indivisible that are pulling together effective organizing teams. And we all need to work where we are how best we can to derail as much of this hideousness as possible. We must resist and reject cruelty.

But, at the risk of sounding saccharine, I’d also like to propose that we fiercely protect Grossman’s “small kernel of human kindness.” If we are among Sontag’s merciful 10%, we may be able to move some of the other 80% in our direction by showing thoughtfulness and compassion in our daily interactions with those around us. One of my mottos is “Amplify the humane.” Or as Henry James put it, “Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”

I received the message below from a friend in Turkey who is helping to organize support for academics who have been targeted by Erdogan’s ongoing purge and witch hunt. The situation seems to be growing ever more dire, with purged civil servants, including university professors, being subjected to a kind of social death, where their benefits are stripped and they are turned into unemployable pariahs. Students have also been detained. (The situation reminds me of what happened to blacklisted writers, actors, and directors during the McCarthy Era here in the United States. Lives were ruined.) Another Turkish friend explained to me last week that what makes the current situation worse than what happened during the coup in the 80’s is that passports are being annulled so those with means are unable to leave the country.

Dear friends and colleagues,

For some time now, we have been wondering about how colleagues abroad can develop solidarity academics and Ph.D. students expelled from their positions, either for having signed a Peace Petition against military operations in Turkey’s Kurdish-populated Southeast provinces, or for being critical of the government and conducting research on “sensitive” issues.

As of now, more than 400 critical academics and Ph.D. students have lost their jobs, income, access to universities, and their chances of teaching or carrying out research in Turkey. Most of them cannot leave the country since their passports have been annulled.

Here are two very simple ways you can help:

1) Fill out this online form to help assess individual cooperation possibilities as a first step to building a network of solidarity among academics from around the world and the Academics for Peace in Turkey:

2) Financial resources to help expelled academics survive are now being pooled through the Brussels-based Education International, the world’s largest federation of unions for teachers and education employees. You can choose to make a lump-sum contribution or regular money transfers – every penny will make a difference! Details may be found here, and routing information is below.

I really hate the expression “self care,” but I have been developing strategies for keeping my news feed from overwhelming me with anxiety, despair and anger. At the risk of appearing anodyne, I will share my five-point plan.

1. Practice harm reduction with intake of news. Try to keep social media to specific times of the day and limit the length of exposure. I will admit that I’m struggling with this one, but making some headway.

3. Find time each day—even fifteen minutes—for something you enjoy. I love to bake, to doodle, to knit, to listen to music, to study Armenian, to walk in Central Park, or to watch an old film. Do something creative. Go to a museum. To this end, look at this beautiful slideshow of photos by Gordon Parks.

4. Spend time with people you like or love. Go out for a meal with friends or family. Have friends over to watch a movie. Call someone you haven’t talk to in a long time. Start a reading group (also read about the radical history of reading groups).

5. Practice daily resistance. Send a post card, make a phone call, or go to a meeting or a protest. Organize. Resist. Even five minutes a day can help ward off despair.

Annals of Resistance

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is this week’s hero of the resistance. She attempted to read Coretta Scott King’s 1986 letter opposing Jeff Sessions’ appointment as a judge on the Senate Floor. Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell used an arcane rule to vote her into silence, saying, “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” She was banned from speaking during the rest of the debate so she left the chamber and continued reading the letter, streaming it over Facebook live. And thus was an Internet meme (and a call to resistance) born: “She persisted.” May we all persist and resist.

A mysterious benefactor has been giving away copies of Orwell and Atwood at a bookstore in San Francisco. The goal? “Read up, fight back!”

The Nation has provided a guide to groups organizing resistance to the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This is primarily focused on electoral organizing and citizen lobbying.

Action items

#PostcardsToBannon: Send a post card to “President Steve Bannon,” which is sure to annoy the hell out of #45. (And let’s avoid the name and just refer to him as #45.)

Read and join the call from Nancy Fraser, Barbara Ransby, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Angela Davis and others for a Women’s Strike on March 8, International Women’s Day 2017: “The ‘lean-in’ variety of feminism won’t defeat this administration, but a mobilization of the 99% will.”

This long read piece by Mike Davis is a brilliant and incisive analysis of Trump’s election victory: The Great God Trump and the White Working Class. He has a strong indictment of the Democratic Party. The crux move for us going forward is going to be wresting control of the party away from the neoliberals who foisted Hillary Clinton on us as a candidate. Davis sees it as a struggle between Obama and Sanders. He says,

The real opportunity for transformational political change (“critical realignment” in a now-archaic vocabulary) belongs to the Sanderistas but only to the extent that they remain rebels against the neoliberal Democratic establishment and support the resistance in the streets.

Trump’s election has unleashed a legitimation crisis of the first order and the majority of Americans who opposed him have only two credible political rally points: the Sanders movement and the ex-president and his coterie. While our hopes and energies should be invested in the first, it would be foolish to underestimate the second.